The Bones In the Barrel
by Christina's Inferno
Summary: A new squintern, a secret about an old friend, the murder of a woman miles away from home...does anything in this case make sense?
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note- First fanfic ever! I apologize if this is OOC or such. I'm not a scientist, just a writer, so I can't promise any of the science actually is true or makes sense or anything like that. And obviously, reviews are appreciated! Thank you!**_

_Splat._

A figure in high rubber boots and hooded jacket walked through the mud alongside a Virginia road. He or she seemed oblivious to the rain that fell heavily or the lightening that seemed to split the sky in two. The only sign of life around was a battered pick-up truck.

The anonymous figure pulled a shovel and a trash barrel from the bed of the truck.

About thirty feet from the road, the figure began to dig. The ground was thick with mud and slopped around the ankles of the anonymous person. Finally, a hole, six feet around by ten feet deep took shape.

With no care, the person shoved the trash barrel into the hole. Then he or she got to work. The barrel had to be covered. The hole had to be filled.

By the time the hole was filled in, the sky had gone from black to a hazy gray-pink and the storm had stopped. Before it had, the water soaked the ground and it no longer looked as if the hole had ever been there.

If no one could see that it was there, was it actually there?

Satisfied, the figure wiped his or her hands and returned to the truck.

* * *

"Booth, I can't believe they're giving me another intern. I'm perfectly happy with the group I have right now. I don't have the time to train a new person." Brennan sat across from him at their usual table at the Royal Diner.

"Maybe they think you're overworked. Or who knows, maybe they want this new person to learn from the best." Sweets started to open his mouth, but Booth quickly said, "And now is not the time for your pyschobabble, Sweets."

"Hey! I had to go through years of schooling to get this degree! It's not worthless." he protested.

"While it is kind of the Jeffersonian to want to lessen my workload, I'm doing fine right now. I don't feel as if I'm being stretched thin in my work." Brennan cut in. "Even with taking care of Christine, I haven't had one problem."

"Like I said Bones, they probably just want the new person to study with the best forensic anthropologist they have."

"Thank you, but-" She was cut off by the waitress.

"What do you three want?" the girl snapped in a heavy British accent.

"Whoa, whoa, don't talk to her like that!" Booth pulled out his badge. "I'm FBI."

"And I'm the queen of England." Her dark hair was pulled back in a French braid and streaked with bleach. Combined with her heavy eyeliner and black clothes, it made her look like a skunk.

"No, I'm really with the FBI." He glared.

"Good to know. Now what do you want to eat?" Skunk-waitress glared back.

Sweets glanced at her nervously. "I'll have the hamburger."

Nodding, the waitress turned to Brennan. "The garden salad, please."

"And you, FBI super agent?"

"Cherry pie."

"It'll be out soon." Turning her back, she stalked away.

"Head Doctor." Booth looked at Sweets. "What's up with her?"

"I'm a psychologist, not a mind reader."

"But you can profile people, can't you?"

"Not when I've only spent one minute in their presence."

Before Booth could continue, Brennan's phone rang. "Dr. Brennan." As the person on the other end talked, her face grew more and more somber. "We'll be right there, Cam."

Booth and Sweets both started getting up. "What's going on?"

"They found barrel of human remains partially buried off a highway in Virginia."

Just as they were about to get up, the waitress returned with the food. "I don't give a damn if you eat it or not, but you better pay for it." Her tone was still snappish. Sweets had enough sense to get out his wallet and throw a twenty on the table.

"Keep the change."

With narrowed eyes, she watched the three leave.

"I don't like that girl." Booth announced. Nobody disagreed.

* * *

Booth pulled the car up to the side of the highway where the rest of the Jeffersonian team was assembled. At first glance, it looked like a typical farm field, except for a half-buried blue plastic barrel in the middle of it. Cam was already standing over the barrel.

"We haven't moved anything yet." Cam told Brennan. "The farmer who owns this field saw the top of the barrel when he was out walking and went to investigate. When he got the top off, he found…well, he found these." She motioned to the barrel.

Inside was a jumble of bones. The flesh and tissue had somehow been stripped away, and the bones themselves were clean of blood and gore. Brennan reached in her hand and pulled out the skull.

"Judging from the size of the skull, the teeth, and the cranial sutures, I'd say this belongs to a female in her early twenties. I'll have to take the bones back to the Jeffersonian to confirm, but it seems as if we have one complete set of bones." She returned the skull to the barrel. "Where's Booth?"

"Talking to the farmer. We'll take the barrel back to the lab and take soil samples for Doctor Hodgins." Cam paused. "Your new intern can help you reassemble them."

Bones sighed, but before she could say anything, Booth walked over. "Hey. I talked to the farmer. He found the barrel this morning when he went out. He showed me his receipts- apparently he's been in Georgia for the past week visiting his granddaughter."

"Until I can get the bones back to the Jeffersonian, I can't rule anyone out as a suspect." Brennan told him. "I can't tell how long they've been in this barrel or how long they've been dead until Hodgins and I examine them."

"Maybe your new squintern will know something." Booth suggested with a smile. Brennan said nothing.

* * *

After quickly calling to check in on Christine, Doctor Brennan walked into her lab, where she was greeted by the sight of a young woman with a lab coat and a shock of short, dyed black hair standing by the lab table.

"Dr. Brennan?"

"Yes?"

"I'm Gloria. Gloria Ashley Gerard. I'm your new intern." Bones noticed that underneath the lab coat, she was wearing blindingly red pants and a shirt featuring strange-looking androgynous faces.

"Well, Miss Gerard. You can start by helping me reassemble this skeleton so Dr. Hodgins and I can determine the date of death for these bones."

"You can skip right to the dating part." She glanced at the table. "I assembled them right when they were brought in, it was pretty easy. It's the bones of one person only, female, in her twenties." She glanced back at Brennan's face. "But you already knew that."

"I did, Miss Gerard. And while I applaud your initiative, in the future, you should wait for me before touching the evidence."

"Yes ma'am. But…I can also tell you how she died."

Brennan was momentarily stunned. The bones had returned to the lab when she did; her conversation with her father about Christine had only taken ten minutes. Already this new squintern had managed to reassemble the skeleton _and_ determine the cause of death?

"And how did she die, Miss Gerard?"

"Well, see this groove here? It's a knife wound. My theory is that her throat was slit and then while she was bleeding out, she was beheaded. If you look at the neck, the vertebrae are cut in half."

Brennan went to study the bones. Sure enough, the vertebrae were in pieces. Everything Gloria Gerard had described was correct.

"If that was how she was killed, when did the murder take place?"

Gloria smirked. "I was under the impression we needed Dr. Hodgins for that, Dr. Brennan."

Bones studied the new girl for a moment. She wasn't sure if she was pleased, amused, or just unsettled. She'd have to wait and see.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note- I'm back! And I hope you like this!**_

_**1. Again, science isn't my thing, sorry about any OOC, please review and make me feel loved, et cetera. **_

_**2. By the way, there should be some sort of dividing line between the sections of these chapters, but I'm using a word processing program that's about one step above a typewriter and I'm having some trouble with formatting. Hopefully you can all figure it out and it's not too confusing. **_

_**3. Finally, the name of the victim is pronounced "Lee-duh-vigh" and**_

_**4. Anything you recognize is not mine. **_

Cam, Angela, and Brennan stood in front of the Angelatron, staring at the picture on the screen. "I know it's not perfect, but it's the best I could do for facial reconstruction without any tissue." Angela explained. "I'll run it through every possible database, but if you don't have any parameters, it could take awhile."

"Until Doctor Hodgins and Mr. Abernathy are able to determine the date our skeleton died, and Miss Wick finishes dusting the barrel for fingerprints, this is our only option." Brennan said. Cam nodded.

Pressing a button, Angela started the search for the victim's face. Although she'd warned them that it could take hours, it was only five minutes before a result came up. "It's a missing persons report from earlier this month." She paused. "I'm not sure how to pronounce this name."

"Lidewij Sneijer." Brennan read from the police report, which featured a picture of a young blonde woman wearing a shirt with a foreign language printed on it.

"She's a graduate student at George Washington University who was reported missing after she didn't show up for several meetings with the youth group she helps with and no one could reach her cell phone. The pastor of the youth group filed the report." Angela read the report.

"Is there anything else? We need whatever we can get." Cam reminded her, and Angela began to run the name through the Angelatron. A few social networking sites, news releases, and immigration documents came up.

"Here. She was born in Amsterdam, went to the University of Amsterdam to get a degree in English literature, and then came here to get a graduate degree in English and American Lit. According to this newspaper article, she was scheduled to go to Argentina with a local church youth group to build a school there." Flipping through her Facebook and Tumblr pages, the trio saw picture after picture of Lidewij, sometimes with purple-streaked hair, sometimes with a group of teenagers in matching shirts, some in front of DC monuments.

"Do you know where we can reach her pastor?" Brennan asked.

"His name is Robert Burley and he's the pastor of the Methodist church over by the GW campus." Angela sent the information to Brennan's phone. "The police talked to him already and it doesn't look like they have any suspects in her disappearance."

"It never hurts to be sure." Brennan replied. "Booth and I can go talk to him. At the least, he could have some idea about who would want to hurt Miss Sneijer."

* * *

"Lidewij is dead?" The pastor stared at Booth and Bones for a moment. "I can't think of someone who would even _dislike_ her, much less want to kill her. She was just…so…" But he trailed off, and simply stared at them in shock.

"I know you've been over this, but what made you decide to fill the report?" Agent Booth asked.

"She was always reliable. She never missed a meeting without telling me beforehand. But then she didn't come to our weekly Thursday meeting and she didn't answer any calls or text messages or emails. I thought she might be ill or someone in her family might have been in an accident, but we hadn't heard from her by Sunday and she didn't show up at services. Finally, I went over to her apartment, but nobody answered."

"Was she acting weirdly before she disappeared?"

"No, not at all. If something was bothering her, she was hiding it very well."

"Did she have any close friends we could talk to? A boyfriend?"

"If she had a boyfriend, I never heard about him. You could talk to Maria. Maria Sanchez. She was the co-coordinator of the trip with Lidewij. Other than her, I don't think there was anyone she was particularly close to. But you might have better luck if you talked to her professors."

"We'll talk to Maria." Brennan assured him. "Thank you, Mr. Burley."

"You're welcome." He sighed. "Please, if there's anything else I can do for you, don't hesitate to let me know."

* * *

Maria Sanchez was no help either. "I only ever talked to Lidewij about our Argentina trip." she told the agent and the doctor. "She was nice but not really that friendly. I got the impression she only had me helping because I spoke Spanish and she didn't."

Booth rubbed his forehead. This case was barely three hours old and it was already full of dead ends. "There's nothing you can remember about Lidewij that might be helpful?"

Maria played with a piece of her hair for a minute, thinking. Finally, she said, "She got a job. She was saving money for Argentina, I think. She was late to a couple meetings because of it."

"Do you know where she worked?" Brennan asked, but Maria shook her head.

"I think she was baby-sitting for someone, or working at a daycare center. I don't think she was really happy about it, but she needed the money and I don't think her visa gave her many options. Whatever it was, I don't know where it was or who she worked for."

"She never said anything about it? Anything at all?"

"No. It probably wasn't her dream job or anything, but she never said anything negative about her employer. She just said she wasn't really a 'kid' person."

"All right." Booth handed her a card. "If you think of anything else, give me a call."

They were almost out the door when Maria called out, "Wait! One more thing!"

Booth turned back to her. "Yes?"

"Victoria. One of the children she worked with was named Victoria. I know it's not much, but it's all I know."

Brennan sighed. "Thank you, Miss Sanchez."

* * *

"Lidewij Sneijer's pastor and co-worker were only minimally helpful." Brennan told Angela an hour later. "Neither of them knew anything besides Lidewij baby-sitting for a child named Victoria."

"I could run birth records." Angela looked dubious. "But I really don't know what else to tell you, sweetie. Hodgins and Finn don't seem to have had any luck with the bones."

"I have good news! Well, news. I don't know how good it is, but I found something!" Daisy burst in, holding up a piece of paper. "There's a partial fingerprint on the lid of the barrel."

"I'll run it through the Angelatron to see if we can get anything." Within minutes, the computer had pulled up four results. One was a sex offender in Hawaii, one was a teenager in Maine busted for growing pot in his closet, one was a South Carolina housewife accused of murdering her husband for his insurance, and the final was a girl studying in DC.

Brennan studied the pictures for a moment. "I know her."

"The housewife?"

"No, the student. She was our waitress at the diner this morning. She was quite rude."

Angela pulled up the file. "Her name's Ariella Cole. She just moved to DC from England to study at George Washington. I'll run a search on her." The group watched as documents filled the screen. "Wow. Look at this." Indicating an article from a prestigious British newspaper, Angela read, "'Mr. Cole, who was just awarded a CBE from the Queen, is predeceased by his wife Nora, and survived by their daughter Ariella.' It looks like your waitress inherited a lot of money."

"Why would she be in DC working as a waitress?" Cam asked. "Or be involved with Lidewij Sneijer?"

"It looks like she spent two years a few years in DC on an exchange program from University of Leeds and returned to take graduate classes." Angela replied. "And look at this." She pulled up immigration documents. "She entered the country two months ago with her daughter Victoria."

"So Ariella Cole was attending the same university as Miss Sneijer and employing her as a babysitter?"

"That's what it looks like."

"I'll call Booth and have her brought in."

* * *

"This better not take too long. I have more important things to do." Ariella Cole sat across the table from Booth and Sweets, examining the long purple talons that passed for her fingernails. "What does this have to do with, anyway?"

"Lidewij Sneijer." Booth let the name hang in the air for a moment. "Miss Cole, how was your relationship with Lidewij Sneijer?"

"She showed up when she was supposed to. She took care of my daughter. I paid her half my paycheck every week. She left. Our relationship was fine."

"You never fought about money or about how she took care of your daughter?"

"No. She was a perfectly fine babysitter until she stopped showing up a few weeks ago. I left her several messages but she never replied."

"She's dead."

Ariella snorted. "Let me guess. You think I killed her?"

"We found a partial fingerprint that matches yours on the barrel her body was found in."

"That's ridiculous!" Ariella snapped. "I don't know how your lab runs these tests, but I certainly had nothing to do with her death! And if all you have is a partial fingerprint, I don't know how you intend to prove this."

Booth and Sweets exchanged a look. "Look, Miss Cole, we have your partial fingerprint on the barrel the body was found in, we know that you employed Lidewij Sneijer and went to the same college as her. We have a connection between you and the victim and evidence that connects you to the victim's body."

"You haven't asked me about a motive for her death or how the death occurred. I'm assuming you yourselves have no idea. And if you don't, then you need to let me go and leave me alone because. I. Had. Nothing. To. Do. With. It."

"We think that her throat was slit and as she bled out, she was beheaded."

"How would you like to explain that to me? I have no idea how I would be expected to do that."

Another look passed between Sweets and Booth.

* * *

"She's right." Booth admitted. "We don't have any idea how Ariella Cole would have killed Lidewij Sneijder."

"I have my new intern examining the remains, but so far we don't have any ideas."

"What about Hodgins and Finn? Have they found anything?"

Angela shook her head. "Not yet. But…I did do some digging into Ariella in case it came up with anything."

"Well, did you find anything?" Bones demanded.

"Actually, I did." Angela brought up two death certificates, a college transcript and a social networking profile. "Ariella's mother died when she was 5 and her father died right after she turned 18. Her mother was the heir to a wealthy noble family and her father owned a very successful broadcast network in the UK. After her father died, she enrolled at University of Leeds and spent a year there before she came to DC on a transfer program with George Washington. She was here for two years before returning to Britain to graduate in May. She was a double major in Anthropology and Archeology, and takes graduate classes in Archeology. From her profile here, it looks like she wanted to be a paleontologist, or at least she did a year ago."

"A year ago?"

"She hasn't updated this since last May. Her last post was on the fourteenth of May last year, when she wrote that she was returning to England. That was it. Not even any baby pictures."

"What about the daughter? Is there a father?" Sweets asked. "Issues with the father of her child could lead to Ariella-"

"Again with the head shrink stuff. Just find the kid's birth certificate or something." Booth turned to Angela. "You can do that right?"

"I can do that." She pressed a few buttons. "And here it is. Victoria Cole. Born on January 11th in London, England. And-"

"Dr. Brennan!" Gloria Gerard stood at the door, her lab coat askew. The group all turned. "I know what the murder weapon was."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note- Okay, this is story is probably going to get a lot more rambling and complex so please try to bear with me! As always, please review so I feel better, nothing you recognize as mine, and such. Sorry it's so short, but there may be lemons in the next chapter :)**_

Brennan was the first one to speak. "And what is the murder weapon, Miss Gerard?"

Gloria shook her overlong bangs out of her eyes. "I can't be positive until I have the exact weapon, but I believe it's a medieval axe."

"So the killer is working at a Renaissance fair?" Booth asked.

"Or the killer is a collector." Gloria corrected. "I don't have anything to compare it to, but from the damage to the bones in the spine, it looks like it's an axe that was used in warfare during the 1600s. It's got a crescent-shaped blade and was designed to cut through a knight's armor to the flesh underneath, so it's got the kind of power to decapitate someone." She motioned to the Angelatron. "Try searching for a picture of it."

Brennan examined the picture Angela found. "This would fit with the way the bones were cut. What about the knife that was used to cut her throat?"

"I haven't had as much luck with that." Gloria admitted. "The breakage of the bones makes it hard to determine what type of knife was used. Whoever beheaded her did it from the back of the neck, like in a medieval execution, but her throat was slit from the front. The beheading destroyed a lot of the evidence on the front of the bones."

"So the killer slit her throat to the bone, then beheaded her in an attempt to disguise the damage from the knife." Brennan nodded at Gloria Gerard.

"Would Ariella Cole have access to a medieval battle axe?" Booth looked skeptical. "I know she's got a rich daddy and all, but how would she manage to get a battle axe through customs?"

"She wouldn't necessarily have had to bring it from Britain." Gloria rolled her eyes. "It would be pretty easy for someone with her money and her connections to get her hands on one in America."

"We need to be able to tie Ariella to the potential weapon." Booth continued. "Do we have anything that would even suggest she had that kind of axe?"

Brennan shook her head. "With only the partial fingerprint to substantively tie Miss Cole to the victim, it could be difficult to get a search warrant for her house."

Booth sighed. "I'll try and get one anyway. We need something soon. Has Hodgins found anything yet?"

* * *

Hodgins and Finn stood over the bones and the barrel. Finn sighed.

"There's absolutely nothing useful on the bones or the barrel." Hodgins told Brennan. "We've swabbed them, looked at them under a blacklight, dusted for fingerprints three times, and looked at them with the strongest microscope we have. The only thing we've got is that this person cleaned the bones and the barrel in a cheap bleach solution. Two parts bleach to one part water. Anyone who buys bleach at a drugstore could have made this."

"Can't you determine what brand of bleach it was?" Brennan asked.

It was Hodgin's turn to sigh. "We could, but all it'll tell us is if the killer preferred bargain brand or Clorox."

Finn nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry ma'am. We'll keep looking."

"Identify the brand of bleach." Brennan said. "And run the solution mass spectrometer to see if you can determine the exact ratio of hydrogen to oxygen isotopes. If we can determine where exactly the water is from, we can identify the general area the killer lived in."

"Of course!" Hodgins hit himself on the head. "We've already run the solution through the mass spec to determine what components were in the solution. I can just bring up the results again." He clicked. "And here you go."

"The isotope ratios in the water are consistent with those from the greater DC area." Brennan examined the breakdown of the water. "Both Lidewij Sneijer and Ariella Cole live in this area." She looked displeased.

"That doesn't prove anything." Both Hodgins and Finn frowned.

Someone knocked on the wall. A pretty girl with long dark hair stood at the door to the lab. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Finn's face lit up. "Michelle!" He turned back to Brennan and Hodgins. "Am I allowed to leave?"

"Of course, Mr. Abernathy. It doesn't look like we'll be able to get anything else tonight."

Michelle took Finn's hand and he kissed her on the cheek. Hodgins shook his head. "At least someone will be having fun tonight."

* * *

Elsewhere, Ariella Cole put her daughter to bed, turned off all the lights in her apartment, and turned on her computer. On the surface, it looked like the typical laptop of a typical college student. She flipped through several sites- American news, British news, email- before opening up a new, blank tab. With a few clicks, she reached the FBI website. She turned on some slow, sad British soul song, and got to work.

It took her less than an hour to get through the FBI's firewalls and security. Computer hacking might not have been a typical skill listed on the resume of a wannabe paleontologist, but Ariella thought of it as a bonus- she'd taught herself as a young teenager using the state-of-the-art equipment her father owned, and if digging up dinosaur bones didn't work out, she'd always have a job for somebody who wanted information they weren't able to get legally. And besides, her father had always told her that one-dimensional people were boring.

After breaking through the security that the FBI thought was keeping them safe, it took considerably more time to access the personal files of Agent Seeley Booth. By this time, her CD had repeated itself several times and the sky had gone from deep navy to ink black. Quickly, she skimmed over the reports Agent Booth had filed. She knew exactly what she wanted and didn't doubt her skill but she was realistic- if she were caught she wanted it to look as random as possible. After some deliberation, she finally closed her eyes, selected eight different files blindly and printed them. Next, she opened up the notes Booth and the FBI had begun on the Lidewij Sneijer case, printed those, and put each separate case into a different file folder. All the file folders went into a lockbox she kept in her desk.

Finally, she returned to the computer. She opened up one more file, read the first sentence, and printed it out. Taking the stack of papers to her bed, she sat and began to read. At one point, she threw all the paper to the floor in anger, but picked them back up and continued to the end. A tear slipped down her cheek, but she ignored it. A flaming feeling erupted in her chest, one that sent her into Victoria's room to clutch her daughter to her chest. Revenge.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note- Time for some lemonness (is that even a word? I've decided it's a word.) and a flashback. I'll put the flashback in italics so you can tell what parts they are. Just a warning- I rated this M for a reason. This isn't the most explicit thing ever, but there is sex and all that comes with it. And again, nothing you recognize is mine and reviews are lovely (to quote Vincent Nigel-Murray). Oh, and thanks must be given to TheMortician'sDaughter, who answered all my stupid and nonsensical questions about Bonesverse. So, thank you! Enjoy!**_

Ariella couldn't sleep. She watched the numbers on the clock slip by. She lay on her back. She lay on her stomach. She lay on her side. She kicked the blankets off, then pulled them back up, then kicked them off again. She lay on the floor. She went back to bed. Finally, she gave up and let her memories consume her.

_A girl with a round face and long, glossy dark hair sat at a table, surveying the crush of bodies gyrating on the dance floor. Despite her sparkly dress and sky-high heels, she felt wildly out of place. The pounding bass made her head throb, and she contemplated faking a short but severe illness so she could leave._

_Vaguely, she registered the presence of another human being next to her. _

_"Excuse me?" She turned to face him. It was a man, young, pale, and a bit nervous-looking, and somehow familiar to her. "Oh. Oh."_

_"Yes?"_

_"Oh. I'm sorry. From behind, I thought you were someone else. Just you're um…obviously not my ex-girlfriend, you've got….um….well…."_

_"I've got…?" She knew exactly where this was going but made no effort to help him get there._

_"Well, you have substantially better-developed mammary glands." He blushed a bit. "I mean, you have nicer breasts." He placed on odd emphasis on the final word._

_"Thank you?" She studied him for a moment to see if he was drunk. If he was, he was doing a great job faking it. "Are you going to offer to get me a drink?"_

_He looked at her with some trepidation. "Actually, that would be a bad idea as I am currently trying to complete a 12-step program to prevent myself from doing and saying stupid things while drunk like telling everyone I slept with my boss and stealing her lizard to wear as a hat."_

_"I don't drink either." she told him. "So you've passed." _

_"Is that…good?" _

_She smiled at him. "If you want it to be."_

_He smiled back at her. "I would very much like that, yes."_

_"Is your boss attractive?"_

_His smiled faded a bit and he looked a little confused. "Dr. Brennan?"_

_"Your boss who you told everyone you slept with?"_

_"Well…she was…um….lovely for someone older, I suppose. Not nearly as attractive as you." His smile returned. _

_"Your flattery is noted. Do you work at a hospital or something of the like? Since your boss is DOCTOR?"_

_"Oh, no. I actually worked in a lab for a forensic anthropologist. So Dr. Brennan is a Ph.D. She's…um…not a medical-type doctor. But I am no longer employed by her since she is now in Maluku Islands doing research and I quit my job after I won a million dollars on Jeopardy."_

_Suddenly, she remembered. "You're the brilliant one from Jeopardy! The one who went to University of Leeds! I loved you on that, I was so excited when you won!"_

_"I wasn't aware that I had a fangirl following." He smiled. "But I'm glad you appreciated me."_

_"Well, when you were on the show, I was at University of Leeds and I was very happy to see someone else from the university on the show."_

_"You went to University of Leeds too?"_

_"I was a freshman. I go to George Washington University now, on an exchange program. I'm studying to be a paleontologist." _

_"Really? I'm a bit jealous actually, I love dinosaurs."_

_"Can't you take some of your million dollars and go off looking for some? You did work for an anthropologist."_

_"I sort of…um….spent all my money. On things I didn't actually need. Like gambling. And the aforementioned alcohol. And the rehabilitation for the alcohol."_

_She looked down and at her hands and at anything that wasn't his face. Finally, she said the only thing she could think of. "I'm sorry."_

_"Oh. No. I suppose it's all right. I did enjoy some of it. And I met many attractive women. Like yourself."_

_"I should probably tell you my name." She suddenly realized how far the conversation had gotten. "I'm Ariella. Ariella Cole." She held out her hand. "And you're Vincent."_

_"VIncent Nigel-Murray."_

_"Vincent Nigel-Murray. It's a pleasure to meet you."_

_"And you too, Ariella." He nodded. _

_"How'd you manage to wear an iguana as a hat?" _

_He smiled again. "Oh. I'm rather clever with ribbons. I tied it to my head."_

_They both laughed._

* * *

_He ran a hand through the loose curls that fell down her back, until he found the zipper at the back of dress. She slipped it away from her body as if it was nothing, adding it to the pile with their shoes and his jacket. In her bra and underwear, she went to him and worked at the buttons of his shirt. His hands roamed over her, reaching for her, tangling in her hair, pulling her bra straps off her shoulders. He buried his face in her neck as she unzipped his pants. _

_"Top or bottom?" she whispered in his ear. He didn't respond, but kissed her neck hard, sucking, biting at her. _

_Pants around his ankles, she disentangled herself and knelt in front of him. Her hands were warm on him as they worked him. He moaned. "Ariella. Mmmmmmm…Ariella." She had him in his mouth, licking, sucking, running her teeth up and down his shaft. "Ariella! Stop. Stop."_

_She pulled away. "What?"_

_"Get my wallet from my back pants pocket. Condom." _

_"Right." She dug through the pile of their clothes, found his pants, pulled out the wallet, took out the packet, and ripped the foil wrapper away from the condom. To his surprise, she put it in her mouth, then using her tongue and teeth, worked it down his penis._

_"Talented." _

_"I try." She stood up. They kissed, hard, his tongue probing the inside of her mouth. She pulled him towards the bed, pushed him down onto the mattress. He lay down as she continued to kiss him, first his mouth, then his neck, then chest, abdomen, and inner thighs, teasing. Kneeling over him, she could feel his erection against her and crouched down further. With her hands, she positioned his penis so the head was just touching the entrance of her vagina. Then she took his hands, and brought them to her breasts. As she moved, bucking against him, he stroked them. When she stopped moving for just a minute to catch her breath, him still deep inside of her, he began to suck at one of them, working her nipple with his tongue, until she cried out. After that, she went faster, riding him like some sort of animal, as they moaned in sync, covered in sweat. His body shook as she brought her lips to his ear, moaning slowly and softly until finally he came._

_Later, they slept tangled together._

At six o'clock, Ariella woke after an hour of tormented sleep. She went back to her computer and once again, hacked her way into the FBI's mainframe. From this, she accessed the IP address of Agent Booth's computer. This wasn't quite the revenge she had in mind, but it would do.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's Note- I finally figured out how to put in the break between scenes! Hopefully, that'll make it less confusing for everyone. Remember, nothing you recognize belongs to me, review or I'll be sad, all that good stuff! Also, I tried my best with Finn's dialogue to keep it as in-character as possible but I'm not sure if I did it right or not. If he just sounds like a pompous hillbilly, I apologize. **_

Doctor Brennan stood over the remains of Lidewij Sneijer, examining them for what felt like the fiftieth time. It didn't help that she was exhausted from staying up all night with Christine, who had an ear infection. It also didn't help that after her past twenty-four hours of brilliance, Gloria Gerard had seemingly disappeared, leaving her temporarily intern-less. Wendell was probably late, and Daisy was probably hooking up with Sweets in his office.

"Good mornin' ma'am." It was Finn, smiling at her from underneath the brim of his omnipresent baseball cap. He looked tired like Brennan, but was about as happy as she was annoyed. "Have you found anythin'?"

"Not yet. Miss Gerard, Miss Wick, and Mr. Bray are all absent."

"Is somethin' wrong ma'am? You seem more agitated than a dog before a storm." He chanced a look at Brennan's face. "You're frustrated by the case, aren't you ma'am?"

"While I find this case particularly vexing so far, Mr. Abernathy, I am extremely good at what I do. There's no need to worry."

Heels clicking, Cam entered and came to stand by Brennan. "We're not worried. Are we, Mr. Abernathy?" She gave him a look obviously meant to convey something significant.

"I have complete faith in you, ma'am." Finn took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. "I was just wonderin' if we're lookin' at this case the right way."

Both Brennan and Cam stared at him. "What do you mean 'the right way', Mr. Abernathy?"

"Well, ma'am, I know how much you believe in forensics, but maybe this time, you need to start from another place. You have a partial fingerprint and the cause of death- maybe you should do more research into how the victim and the suspect got along with one another. You've only talked to two people who knew the victim and spoken to the suspect once- maybe forensics can't answer everything for you."

Brennan simply looked liked Finn had told her the world wasn't round. Cam, on the other hand, seemed more receptive to the idea. "Mr. Abernathy could be right, Dr. Brennan. And it does us no good to have you spend time reexamining the remains only to find nothing."

"I will go check with Angela to see if she can find anyone who might have seen any altercations between Lidewij Sneijer and Ariella Cole." Brennan said stiffly. She continued to watch Finn coolly for a minute before walking out.

"Mr. Abernathy."

"Yes, Doctor Saroyan?"

"If that's what you can come up with after a late night out, I may have to let Michelle see you more often."

* * *

When Brennan walked into Angela's office, she was surprised to see Booth standing there next to her. Both of them looked frustrated.

"Angela? Booth? What's going on?"

"Booth's computer isn't working." Angela sighed. "So far, I haven't been able to get it to work no matter what I do."

"You can't just, I don't know, plug it in and reset it or something?" Booth asked.

"I have a minor in computer science, not magic." Already, the computer was hooked up to the Angelatron. "Whatever happened was pretty intense. Did you get it wet?"

"It worked fine when I shut it off last night. I haven't done anything unusual with it."

"Well, I think I'm getting something now." As Brennan and Booth watched, the screen of the Angelatron turned white. "Or not. Now the Angelatron's broken to. I thought I programmed this-" But she trailed off as writing began to appear on the white.

'HELLO AGENT SEELEY BOOTH. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I KNOW. I KNOW EVERYTHING.' It remained on the screen for a moment, and then was replaced by a shorter but no less disturbing message. 'YOU SHOULD BE DEAD.'

No one spoke for a moment. "I think you've been hacked." Angela said finally.

"How? Other than this, the computer's been working just fine. No one's reported anything missing or changed or whatever."

"Can you run some sort of search to see who last looked at each file?" Brennan asked.

"Every file? That's going to take time." But Angela was already inputting the search parameters anyway. "Who would have the skills to do this?"

Nobody said anything. Finally, Angela broke the silence. "Yesterday, ten files were accessed from a server that's not part of the Jeffersonian or the FBI."

"Which ten?"

Angela read through the descriptions on each. "It seems almost totally random. There's a case involving the Gravedigger, one involving Broadsky, there's one from before Brennan joined full-time, a few from the past five years or so, and the preliminary notes on Lidewij Sneijer."

"Could Ariella Cole have done this?" Booth wanted to know.

"There's nothing in her background that suggests advanced computer skills." Brennan pointed out. "If it really is just random, someone could have picked the most recent case you accessed because it was easiest. Or it was meant to look random, in which case the hacker is trying to throw us off by picking the case he or she knows we'll be most concerned with."

"I'll run Ariella Cole's name again." Once again, the immigration documents, newspaper articles, birth certificates, and social networking sites showed up. "I can look through all pictures of her on the social networking sites to see if she's ever using a computer, but that's not going to give you the evidence you need."

"We're running out of ideas." Booth said.

"Okay. Here's some pictures someone named Carly Hanson posted of Ariella in the last month."

"The name's not familiar."

"It shouldn't be. It doesn't look like Ariella knew her very well. These are just photos from some class trip to a museum." She kept scrolling. "This looks like it's from graduation and this one looks like it's from the end of her pregnancy." In these photos, Ariella's face was less round and there were dark shadows underneath her eyes. "Oh, here's something. It's a paper Ariella worked on with one of her professors, something about…well, things only you would know about." She motioned to Doctor Brennan. "No offense, honey."

"Oh, I'm perfectly aware that my interest in anthropology isn't one that most other human beings share." There was no irony in her voice. "Maybe we should go talk to this professor, Booth."

"I've got nothing else to do right now. Send me the address, Angela. And try to fix my computer, would you?"

* * *

"Doctor Jeffrey McDonald." Booth read the name from the door of the office he and Brennan stood outside of. "Professor of Archeology." He knocked.

"Come in."

"Doctor Jeffrey McDonald?" Booth asked the lanky, sandy-haired man sitting behind a desk littered with models of dinosaurs.

"Yes?"

"I'm Agent Booth, FBI, and this is my partner, Doctor Brennan. We'd like to ask you some questions about one of your students."

"Of course. Is he or she in trouble?"

"That's what we're trying to determine." Booth said tactfully. "Do you know Ariella Cole well?" He gave McDonald a copy of the paper they'd written together. McDonald nodded.

"As well as anyone could really _know_ Ariella." He placed a fingertip to his temple, apparently in thought. "She was rather reserved. Absolutely brilliant, but not very social."

"Did she ever come to you to talk about anything?" Booth asked. "Academic advice or personal troubles?"

"Oh no. It was always just business with Ariella. Even before she returned to Leeds, she was fairly self-sufficient. Now, she's even less social, but no, Agent Booth, she never was the type to come ask for anything that wasn't impersonal."

"Do you know anything about her return to Leeds?"

"No, not at all. She came here to George Washington at the beginning of her sophomore year, stayed on for her junior year, and was supposed to return for senior year, but about a year ago, in May, she sent me a very brief email saying she was returning to Leeds to finish up her undergraduate studies. She never said why, and then this year, she showed up for the second semester to take some graduate classes."

"No idea why?"

"None whatsoever. I assumed it was some sort of family trouble."

"You don't think it was to ensure her daughter was born a British citizen?" Brennan asked. McDonald's eyes widened.

"Daughter?"

"You didn't know Ariella was pregnant?"

He shook his head. "I had no idea. She's never said anything about a child."

"Could you think of anyone who could be the child's father?" Booth asked.

"I only saw her with a boy once, right before she returned to Leeds." McDonald told them. "Someone came in while she was working on some research with me one night and brought her coffee. I couldn't tell you his name if I tried. All I remember is that she seemed very happy to see him, kissed him and everything. That's all I remember. I suppose the time frame is right, but like I said, I didn't know anything about Ariella's life outside my classroom."

"What about during class time? What was she like?"

"Oh, she was incredible. If she hadn't double-majored and switched universities, she could have graduated much earlier. I don't think there was anything about the subject she didn't know. She always was raising her hand and telling me things I didn't know, at least when she wasn't attacking that laptop. I don't know quite what she did on it, but I think she didn't want anyone to know. No one else was ever allowed to touch it."

Brennan and Booth looked at one another. "Could she have been a hacker?"

"It's possible. I'm not a computer expert." He shrugged. "Is Ariella okay?"

"Thank you for your time, Dr. McDonald." Brennan said, and both she and Booth left before he could ask for any more information.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note- Nothing you recognize belongs to me. Just saying. And PLEASE REVIEW. That is all.**_

"It's still all circumstantial evidence." Brennan told Angela after she and Booth had returned to the Jeffersonian. "Ariella's professor couldn't definitively tell us if she was hacker or not."

"Sorry, sweetie. I've been working on tracing this hacker but it's not going very well. Whoever it is covered his or her tracks pretty well. But I sent the files and some screenshots up to Sweets to see if he could construct a profile of the hacker."

"That still won't prove that Ariella Cole is the murderer."

"I know. But Hodgins and Finn have nothing, you and Booth have nothing, I've got nothing. How's your new intern?"

"Gloria Gerard? I haven't seen her today."

"She's probably got classes today. Although I could use some of her genius right about now."

"You seem to be doing fine on your own."

"Sweetie, I've got absolutely nothing. This is not fine."

"No, you've got something on the screen."

"Oh!" Angela turned to face the Angelatron. "It's the location of the computer that was used to hack Booth's." A map appeared on the screen. "The hacker was using a network in an apartment complex over by the Potomac River."

"Can you determine which apartment the hacker lives in?"

"I can try. No promises though." Brennan waited as Angela navigated herself through the computer coding, finally clicking on what looked like a totally random set of numbers. "Your hacker lives in Apartment #24."

* * *

Neither Booth nor Sweets were entirely surprised when the hacker turned out to be Ariella Cole. Someone else had been the one to actually bring her in, but her computer had been given to Angela for investigation and Booth had been allowed to interview her. Unlike the previous times he'd seen Ariella, she wasn't perfectly put together now. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, there were flecks of black makeover under her red eyes, and she was wearing flip-flops and sweatpants. But her typical glare was in place and she fixed her gaze at Booth.

"Miss Cole, we have reason to believe that you recently hacked in the FBI database, read ten files, and then programmed a message onto my computer." Booth sat across from her. She didn't say anything. "Do you want to deny it or should we just assume that you did it and move on to talking about why you did it?"

Ariella was silent for a minute, and then quietly said, "No."

"No what?"

"Just no. I don't have to talk to you and I won't."

"Miss Cole-" Sweets began, but Booth cut him off.

"It was your apartment that we identified the computer that did the hacking, it was the network from your apartment complex that the computer was connected to. We know it was you who accessed the files and threatened me."

Still, Ariella was silent, glaring at Booth.

"Is there something I should know? Are you threatening me? Were you intending to kill me instead of Lidewij Sneijer? Should I-"

"Absolutely not!" Finally, Ariella snapped. "I didn't kill Lidewij and I certainly had no intention of killing you!"

"Then why were you telling me that I should be dead?"

"Because it's true!" Ariella was now on her feet, eyes narrowed.

Sweets had stopped taking notes and was now watching Booth and Ariella. He looked from Ariella to Booth, and then flipped through some of the notes he had on Ariella. "Agent Booth, I need you to step outside for a moment."

"What? I don't have time for your shrink bullshit right now, Sweets. Someone is threatening me, someone who I think has already killed someone in a violent manner, and you want me to step outside?"

"Agent Booth, trust me, this will be beneficial in the long run. Go talk to Doctor Brennan about the remains or something. I need some time with Miss Cole to clarify something." He picked up his phone. "I can call-"

"Fine. You have five minutes, Sweets." He slammed the door to the interrogation room behind him.

* * *

Sweets stared at Ariella for a moment. "I can't promise all of this will remain confidential, but if you can cooperate with me now, I can try to convince Agent Booth to drop the hacking charges."

"Define 'cooperate' for me, Doctor Sweets."

"Tell me about your relationship with Vincent Nigel-Murray."

Ariella seemed to collapse on herself. "How'd you find out?"

"I'm a profiler, Miss Cole. I'm paid to observe people's behavior. One of the ten cases you accessed the file of was the one in which Mr. Nigel-Murray was killed, you attended the same university, were in Washington D.C. at the same time, and given the circumstances of Mr. Nigel-Murray's death, it would make sense that you feel Agent Booth should be dead."

"What do you want to know?" Her iron facade had dropped.

"How'd you meet?"

"At a party hosted by someone I knew from my time at Leeds. He mistook me for an ex-girlfriend."

"When was this?"

"Nearly two years ago. I was finished with sophomore year and he'd been to rehab but hadn't returned to the Jeffersonian yet."

"And you continued to see each other after that?"

"Until he died." She rested her head on her hand and sighed.

"And your pregnancy. When did you find out?"

"The day he was killed. I was going to tell him that night." She looked down at the table. "I almost had an abortion but couldn't go through with it."

"What made you decide to the keep the child?"

"I couldn't let go." Silently, she began to cry, but she looked back up at Sweets almost defiantly. He did not pretend to misunderstand.

"I'll talk to Agent Booth and see what I can do." He closed his files. "We'll let you know what happens. Until then, you won't be allowed to leave."

"Doctor Sweets" Ariella's voice seemed quiet and distant, and her face was streaked with tears. "This conversation won't leave this room, yes?"

"I'll see what I can do." he repeated, and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Booth looked up when Sweets walked out of the interrogation room. "And what did you manage to get out of her with your shrink magic?" His voice was heavily laden with sarcasm.

"I don't think you should charge her with hacking."

"What? Sweets, are you out of your mind? She's a suspect in a murder investigation threatening a federal agent. Of course I'm going to charge her."

"That's the thing, Agent Booth. I can't reveal specifically what she told me, but her comment about you being dead was meant as a fact, not a threat."

"You can't tell me what she told you?"

"As a doctor, I am bound some patient confidentiality guidelines. And you know that a suspect's sessions with a therapist aren't always admissible in court."

"You're not _her_ doctor, Sweets-"

Booth's phone rang. For a moment, he narrowed his eyes at Sweets, but then picked up.

"Booth."

"Booth, it's me. Hodgins and Mr. Abernathy found something." Brennan told him.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Note- 1. Nothing recognizable belongs to me. **_

_**2. Reviews are desired, please!**_

_**3. My apologies for the delay between chapters! I'll work faster, I promise, now that school's over and I have ridiculous amounts of time to write :)**_

_**Enjoy!**_

Brennan, Hodgins, and Finn stood over a table in the lab, while Brennan explained to Booth what they now had.

"We think we've found Lidewij Sneijer's remains." she told him.

"I thought we already had those."

"No, we have her bones. What we're looking at is the tissue that was removed from her body before the bones were sealed into the barrel."

"How'd you get that?"

"They were delivered to the Jeffersonian."

"Delivered? Like in the mail?"

"Yes. They were mailed to 'T. Brennan, care of the Jeffersonian Institute Forensic Sciences Department.' There's no return address. We're waiting for the DNA test to confirm, but note that was to sent us claims that the remains are Miss Sneijer's."

"Call me as soon as you get the results." Booth hung up.

Brennan turned back to Hodgins and Finn. "We need to determine a time of death for these remains, regardless of who they belong to. Mr. Abernathy, we need to lay these out and ascertain which pieces of muscle and flesh we have."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And I," Hodgins could barely contain his glee, "will collect all the bugs on these pieces of tissue."

Finn and Brennan stood on opposite sides of a lab table. With gloved hands, Finn picked up a piece of the remains. It was putrid-smelling, rotting, and covered in what looked like maggots. Decomposing skin was still attached to the muscles. Examining it briefly, he looked up at Doctor Brennan.

"I believe that this is a bicep, ma'am."

"You are correct, Mr. Abernathy. That is the short head of the biceps brachii."

At this Hodgins, who had been watching with mild interest, muttered something about maggots, and left. Painstakingly, Finn and Brennan set about reassembling the tissue into the shape of a body. Almost an hour in, Finn held something up.

"Doctor Brennan, look here."

It was a red thread, attached to the skin of a larger piece of tissue. Doctor Brennan picked up a magnifying glass and observed it. The threat was practically embedded in the rotting skin and muscle.

"This is the trapezius muscle." she proclaimed. Finn raised his eyebrows.

"Perhaps the victim was strangled as well as beheaded." he offered. "Or maybe she was bound and gagged by her assailant."

"Conjecture will not solve this case, Mr. Abernathy." Brennan reminded. "However, if we can analyze this thread, we can gain some very valuable information." She handed him a specimen jar, and with tweezers, he delicately removed the thread from the flesh.

"I'll take this to be analyzed, ma'am."

"Thank you, Mr. Abernathy." Brennan turned back to the remains and got back to work.

* * *

Booth was once again sitting across from Ariella, with Sweets nervously by his side. The shrink was just being frustrating. His computer had been hacked, for heaven's sake, and Ariella Cole had told him he should be dead- did Sweets expect he was just going to drop all the charges and go on with his day because of some mystery confidential conversation?

For a moment, Ariella simply stared at him and then her lips twisted and she smiled in the most un-funny way possible. "Yes, Agent Booth?"

He was incensed, but she was Sweets' little favorite now, so he'd try to play nice.

"How would you feel about taking a polygraph test?"

Ariella pursed her lips for moment, brow furrowed, and then nodded. "Fine."

* * *

It took an hour to find the polygraph specialist, write up the questions, and prep Ariella. Finally, with Booth and Sweets watching from behind a one-way glass partition, the examination began.

"Is your name Ariella Lydia Cole?" the polygraph specialist asked.

"Yes."

"Were you born in London, England?"

"Yes."

After running through a series of fairly innocuous questions (college major, daughter's name, birthday), the examiner moved to the heavier stuff. Sweets stood expressionless beside Booth, and Booth had the feeling he was trying to restrain himself from saying something.

"Did you employ Lidewij Sneijer?"

"Yes." Ariella's face was blank, expressionless.

"Did you attack Lidewij Sneijer with a knife?"

"No."

"Did you attack Lidewij Sneijer with an axe?"

"No."

"Did you kill Lidewij Sneijer?"

"No."

"Did you hack the FBI database?"

"Yes."

"Did you access ten case files belonging to Special Agent Seeley Booth?"

"Yes."

"Did you program a message on to Agent Booth's computer?"

"Yes."

Sweets had an odd twitch to his mouth, one that Booth suspected had to do with the fact that his little favorite was now confessing, via polygraph, to the charges the shrink was trying to keep him from pressing. It would have been funny if Booth hadn't been so freaking pissed about the hacking. He had Parker and Christine and Bones to worry about, and there was no way, no goddamn way, he was letting Ariella do anything to them.

"Did you this message read 'HELLO AGENT SEELEY BOOTH. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I KNOW. I KNOW EVERYTHING' and 'YOU SHOULD BE DEAD.'?"

"Yes."

Throughout this confession, Ariella was stone-faced, looking blankly at the wall in front of her. She looked as if she gave no notice to the monitors and sensors around her and attached to her skin, as if the experience merely bored her. Her voice was monotone, even as she confessed to hacking Booth's computer, and he momentarily wondered if she was mentally deranged somehow, before deciding that would have been too good to be true.

"Did you intend to kill Agent Booth?"

"No."

"Are you planning to kill Agent Booth?"

"No."

"Do you want Agent Booth to be dead?"

"Yes!" Ariella's face transformed as she spat the word out and began ripping at the sensors. "Get these off me. Get these the fuck off me!" She turned to the glass and stared right at Booth. "You deserve to be dead." she hissed.

Booth turned to Sweets. "So, about not pressing charges…."

* * *

Polygraph results in hand, Sweets sat slumped on one of his couches. Agent Booth was smiling at him from the other couch, waiting for the results like a child waiting for a Christmas present.

"It's not all good news for you." Sweets told him. "Despite admitting to the hacking, there's no point on here where the needle moved at all. Either she's received training in foiling these tests, or she's telling the truth."

"But we have the confession recorded, right?"

The psychiatrist rubbed his forehead with his hands in a vain attempt to ward off his headache. "You do."

"Great. So I'll get a hold of it and charge her with hacking. And don't try to convince me to not press the charges. You saw what she was like in there. I want her in prison and away from me and my family."

"Give me one more session with her."

"To what? Offer up some great alibi for a crime she's already confessed to? No way, Sweets. If there's some amazing reason not to charge her, you can tell me now or not at all."

"Fine." The younger man glanced up at Booth, who had risen to leave. "Ariella didn't hack into your computer to access your files on the Lidewij Sneijer case. She was looking for something else. And no, I can't tell you which one." he added quickly, seeing the look on Booth's face. "You're going to have to figure it out yourself or talk to her, but her interest in your files had nothing to do with the current investigation."

Booth sighed. Sweets was being frustrating. Again. He made a mental note to make sure Parker and Christine never considered psychiatry as a career option.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's Note- I don't own Bones, but I'll take reviews if you have them! **_

Booth was sitting in his own office, working on the paperwork necessary to file charges against Ariella Cole, when his phone rang. When he saw that it was Brennan, he didn't even bother to say hello.

"Remind me to make sure that Christine and Parker never become psychiatrists."

"While I agree with your sentiment, I was actually calling to inform you that we got the DNA test back on the remains that were mailed to me."

"And? Are they Lidewij Sneijer's?"

"Yes. Mr. Abernathy and I laid them out to mimic the human body and I have Dr. Hodgins studying the maggots found on them. We also found a red thread in the remains, which we're in the process of analyzing."

"A red thread? Like from piece of fabric?"

"Yes. It was embedded in the tissue of our victim's neck and face, which would indicate that the victim was choked or gagged before her death. If we find another piece of fabric, we can compare the fibers."

"Right. Thanks." He hung up and called out to Gina, "Agent Shaw! Do you have the evidence that was seized from Ariella Cole's apartment?"

"Here. These are the things we took." She brought a box and placed it on his desk. "It's not much. For someone who comes from a wealthy family, she doesn't have a lot of stuff. Her computer is being examined by the tech people, and her knife is with the forensic team."

Booth dug through the box. There was a lockbox and a few pictures. He put the box aside and focused on the pictures. There was a wedding photo of two people Booth assumed were Ariella's parents, a photo of Ariella holding her daughter, and one of Ariella blowing a kiss, wearing a winter coat and hat.

"Do we have the keys to the lockbox?"

"I can find a someone who knows how to open one of these without the keys. We didn't find the keys anywhere in the apartment."

"Right. Good." He glanced down at the photos. In the winter photo, Ariella was wearing a red scarf. "Was scarf in her apartment?"

"I can send someone back to look for it."

"You do that. Are these the only photos in her apartment?"

"It looks like it. I'll go call the locksmith and have the team sent back to her apartment to locate the scarf."

* * *

Doctor Brennan stood behind Hodgins. "The maggots found in the remains are your average housefly. Based on their activity, the death occurred on Thursday the 7th, the day after Lidewij didn't show up for her meeting."

"That doesn't rule Ariella out as a suspect. We'll need to account for her whereabouts that day. I will inform Agent Booth. Has Mr. Abernathy made any progress with the thread?"

"Not that I know of." His expression turned conspiratorial. "So it is true that that girl really hacked Booth's computer? Angela said there was a threatening message on it that said she wanted Booth dead."

"There was a message from her on the computer that claimed that Agent Booth should be dead, yes."

"Whoa. Do you think she's actually gonna attack him or something?"

"Agent Booth was a trained sniper in the military, Doctor Hodgins. I have complete faith that he could defend himself were he to be attacked."

Hodgins looked at her incredulously for a moment. "I meant more…personally. You live together. He's Christine's father. I know that if someone were to threaten Angela like that, I'd be worried sick."

"My personal feelings for Agent Booth are only causing me to devote even more time and effort to solving this case, Doctor Hodgins. Now please stop talking to me about emotions and go see what Mr. Abernathy is doing." With that, she turned and walked away, leaving Hodgins to wonder why he ever left his lab sometimes.

* * *

Two hours later, Shaw came back with another box from Ariella's apartment. "This is everything that's got red fabric. It's not much. Here's the scarf-" she held it up, "-and a few towels from the bathroom, a bathing suit, a dress, and these two shirts. You don't think she could have just thrown whatever it was out?"

"It's possible." Booth admitted. "But we still need to have all those tested. Send them down to the lab, would you? And where's the locksmith?"

"On her way. Do you have the paperwork for the charges?"

"Right here." He handed it to Gina. "Make sure this one goes through fast. I'd like to be able to sleep tonight."

* * *

"The threads I found in the tissue are cotton." Finn told Hodgins. "It's pretty common industrial-type, used for makin' clothin'. There's not much else about it."

"If it's used in clothing, it's probably common." Hodgins sighed. "For all we know, Doctor Brennan can tell us which plant the threads came from and where it grew, but if it doesn't have bugs on it, I can't help you. What about the other items from her apartment?"

"The fibers we found on the body definitely aren't from the dress, bathing suit, or scarf. The dress is silk, the scarf is wool, the bathing suit is spandex and lycra. The towels are partially cotton and the coloring is different, so I think that's a 'no' as well. These two shirts are cotton, but I'll have to run another test to make check whether or not they're the same thing."

"I'm guessing I shouldn't call Doctor Brennan then?"

"Not yet. She's up with Agent Booth and Angela lookin' at whatever else they found in the apartment. Best not to bother them until I have a real answer, I suppose."

"No, I guess not."

* * *

It had taken the locksmith less than two minutes using some sort of elaborate tool to open the lockbox Ariella Cole kept. Inside were the printouts of the cases Ariella had hacked, birth certificates and passports for Ariella and her daughter, and a thick and lumpy manilla envelope.

"I'll take the legal documents, Angela can take the printouts, and Brennan can take the envelope." Booth told the two women. "Angela- Sweets said that the case Ariella Cole was looking for wasn't the Lidewij Sneijer one, so you can eliminate that one. See if there's any connection between any of this stuff."

They all began. Booth glanced through the documents. "Ariella Lydia Cole. Born in London, England to Nora and Robert Cole. Her daughter was born four months ago and is named…" he squinted at the birth certificate, "Victoria Vincent Cole. Born in Leeds, England. No father listed on the birth certificate."

Brennan gasped.

"What is it?" Booth and Angela both turned to her.

"Look at this." She held up a picture of Ariella, laughing and smiling, in the arms of a pale, dark-haired man.

"Is that…" Angela stared. "Is that…._Vincent_?" She grabbed the cases. "Yes. Here's the file about Broadsky and Vincent's death. Ariella was doing a personal investigation into Vincent Nigel-Murray's death."

"They attended the same university in England." Brennan began putting the pieces together in her head. "She was attending George Washington University during the period of in which he was here in DC at the Jeffersonian…."

"…and her daughter's middle name is Vincent." Booth finished for her.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Angela asked.

"She wasn't threatening you, Booth." Brennan cut in. "She believes you should be dead because you were supposed to answer the phone when Broadsky called."

"And Vincent picked up instead." The usual guilty feeling returned to Booth's stomach, the same one that appeared whenever Vincent's death was mentioned.

"No, guys. I mean, it's great that she doesn't want to kill you, Booth, but I'm thinking more about Ariella's daughter." Angela pointed at the birth certificate. "Her daughter's middle name is Vincent and there's not a father listed. Do you think that's because _Vincent_ is the father?"

Brennan and Booth looked at each other. "We need a DNA test." Booth said.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Note- My personal goal is to finish this by the end of the week, which probably won't happen, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right? Yeah, no. **_

_**I still don't own Bones and I still want reviews if you feel like giving them and I still suck at science so it might not make sense if you know anything about science. **_

It was cold. The interrogation room, it was absolutely freezing. They hadn't told her she'd be here practically forever when they'd come to bring Ariella in, and now she was sitting, alone, waiting and cold.

She had no idea what they were doing outside. At this point, she wasn't even sure who 'they' were- there was the profiler/psychologist guy, Sweets, and Agent Booth, but there was some woman he kept talking to on the phone, and then there were occasional mentions of other people, people she didn't know.

Whatever they were doing, whatever they had managed to find out, nobody was telling her. She wasn't even sure what time it was- she never wore a watch, and her phone had been confiscated. All she knew was that she was cold and tired and wanted to go home to Victoria and her bed and some tea. Finally, she put her head in her arms on the table and fell into a hazy half-sleep.

_She'd been shocked, properly shocked, when she'd woken up the next morning, and he'd still been there. She'd been even more amazed that he'd wanted to see her again. Ariella was a bitch, she knew that, and she knew that she was usually too smart for most of the losers she ended up sleeping with. They wanted pretty, uncomplicated girls who thought they were geniuses when they used one word with more than three syllables. _

_It took her over a month to get used to the idea that someone so perfect and funny and intelligent and so fucking attractive would want her. Meanwhile, he started calling her Ari and leaving her notes with random facts related to whatever she was working on at the time and bringing her coffee when she worked all night on papers. _

_The sex wasn't bad either. And by 'wasn't bad', Ariella was pretty sure she really meant 'absolutely mind-blowing'. _

_"Did you know that the endorphins produced during sexual activity create a euphoria quite similar to that precipitated by opioid drug use?" he told her one morning in bed, her head on his chest and his arm around her shoulder._

_"You learn that one from personal experience?" _

_"Possibly." He smirked a bit, like he didn't really know too much about the subject personally, but was willing to play along with her._

_"You're a lot more fun then cocaine, you know," she told him honestly, and he laughed and kissed her on the forehead…._

"Miss Cole." The voice above her sounded far away, like it wasn't from the same planet or even the same galaxy, and then she realized that she had been dreaming and she was not, in fact, in someone else's arms but slumped over the FBI interrogation room conference table. "Miss Cole?"

It was the shrink again, and he was with the FBI guy, Booth. Ariella felt the usual flare of red-hot anger in her chest when she saw him.

"Christ, do you two ever do anything alone?" she snapped. It was still freezing and her nap felt like it had only lasted three minutes.

"Ariella," Sweets, right, Dr. Sweets, sat down across from her again, and she could only imagine where this was going, "Ariella. We need to talk."

'That's a surprise' was the answer she desperately wanted to give, but Sweets was possibly trying to help her, so she only said, "All right."

He turned to Booth. "You wanna be the one to break the news?" He had the look of someone trying to avoid an awkward situation.

"I thought you were the head doctor here, Sweets. Shouldn't you know how to do it nicely?"

"She already hates you." Sweets pointed this out as if Ariella wasn't sitting right there listening to the entire conversation.

"Please just say what you've come to say." When she said that, Sweets gave her a strange look, somewhere where deju-vu and sadness met. "It's not like you two ever come bearing good news."

"We need to do a DNA test on your daughter," Booth said, "We can get a court order if you want, but this will go much more easily if you give us your consent now." He held out a sheet of paper.

"Why do you need to examine my daughter's DNA? I can't see why her parentage has anything to do with your case here, and it's not like I'm going to give you consent to do something that could be used against me, if that's what you're intending. Do you think I steal children in addition to being a murderer and a hacker?"

"We're not trying to establish whether or not you're her mother. We need to confirm her paternity," Sweets explained.

"You assured me that you wouldn't say anything to anyone!" Ariella shrieked at him. "I thought you said that-"

"We had your lockbox confiscated and opened. We found the letters and your pictures." Booth explained.

"You looked at my private things?" Her face was incredulously. Booth felt himself becoming more angry as well.

"Look, you're a suspect in a murder investigation and an investigation into the hacking of the FBI computer database. We had a court order, we're allowed search your stuff. If you continue to stonewall us, we can get another one to test your daughter's DNA or you can sign now and we can move on."

Ariella grabbed the paper and the pen on the table, and scanned them before scrawling her name on the line. "Let me know if I'm the subject of any more court orders."

* * *

Angela spilled the rest of the manila folder onto the table. "Look at all of this." She held up a note addressed to 'Ari". "Poor girl. Her boyfriend is killed and then she had a baby all by herself after both of her parents died."

"That doesn't excuse her from murder," Brennan said stiffly. "While her life may be considered tragic, tragedy is not a legitimate reason to commit murder and then hack the FBI's computer mainframe."

Angela looked down. "Yeah, I know. But I'm not so sure about the murder part."

"You shouldn't let your personal feelings about the suspect get in the way of your objectivity," Brennan chided her. "While it's tempting to feel sympathy for someone who has clearly suffered in life, that doesn't validate her actions."

"No, sweetie, I know. Before you called me up here, I was running through every camera in the city to determine Ariella's whereabouts on the day Hodgins said Lidewij Sneijer was killed. I can show you when we go back to the the lab, but unless Ariella can teleport or something crazy like that, she's not the killer."

* * *

"Okay." Angela had several video feeds up on the Angelatron. "This is the feed from a camera outside Ariella's apartment. At 8:36, Lidewij Sneijer shows up after taking the subway. Ariella leaves at 8:42 and takes the subway to work at the Royal Diner. At 3:18 that afternoon, Ariella comes back and Lidewij leaves at 3:25. Ariella leaves twenty minutes later with her daughter. She shows up across town at 3:52 leaving a subway station and then enters this building here-" she indicated what looked like an upscale office building-"which is where Victoria's pediatrician practices. She left at 4:49. At 4:25, Lidewij Sneijer was video-taped driving her pick-up truck into the parking lot of a Georgetown supermarket. At 4:34 she came out of the store carrying a bag and got into her truck again. But look at this." Angela pointed to the truck as it drove out of the parking lot. "The truck doesn't move for five minutes after Lidewij gets in. When it leaves the parking lot, the driver isn't Lidewij."

Brennan studied the frozen shot of the truck. Instead of a pretty blonde girl with a ponytail and bangs, the driver had short, dark hair and sunglasses. The photo was blurry, but the driver was clearly not Lidewij Sneijer or Ariella Cole.

"That truck is still missing," Angela told her. "But clearly, she wasn't driving. I think we're looking at the murderer."

"It's definitely not Ariella Cole." Brennan looked at the driver again.

"So what does that leave us?" Angela asked. For once, Brennan didn't have an answer


	10. Chapter 10

_**Author's Note- Did I make that last chapter too obvious? Maybe I did. I don't know. Anyway, here's the beginning of the end of the story! I can't say that I know how long this will actually go on.**_

_**I don't own Bones. **_

_**Now that I've gotten that out there, reviews would always be appreciated!**_

"If Ariella didn't do it, then who did?" Booth and Brennan were sitting with Angela back at their usual table in the Royal Diner, eating dinner.

"I have Mr. Abernathy examining the thread found in the victim's tissue," Brennan told both of them, neither of whom looked very enthusiastic.

"Bones, the poor boy's been looking at those threads for hours. Do you really think he's gonna find something new?"

"It can never hurt to re-examine the evidence."

"Did you let Ariella go?" Angela broke in, in an attempt to diffuse the fight.

"Not yet. We still need to deal with the hacking charges."

"I really think you should drop those. Not that I'm an expert in the field or anything, but it doesn't seem like she's malicious or about to do it again. The poor girl just wanted some information on the death of someone she cared about."

"Can we focus on the fact that we know have a killer we know nothing about running around out there?" Booth glared at Angela.

"Although I seriously doubt the killer is running at this moment, I do find it concerning that we have limited information about the killer." Brennan took a bite of salad, thinking for a moment.

"You do know something about the killer, though," Angela pointed out. "He or she had access to medieval weaponry, and used something red to strangle the victim. Maybe he or she worked at a Renaissance Fair."

"That is a possibility," Brennan acknowledged. "We do need to investigate the source of the weapons. In addition to Renaissance fairs, museums and private collectors are other potential sources of those weapons. We'll need to compile a list of all the collections of these weapons we can find."

* * *

When Brennan returned to the lab, she found Finn and Gloria standing over the remains. Today, Gloria was wearing black pants and a teal shirt, and Brennan was mildly relieved that her clothes was more….normal.

"I determined what the material of the thread was." Gloria didn't even offer an introduction, and again, Brennan felt the odd, unsettling feeling that Gloria had once given her before. "The threads are a common cotton found in mid-level quality clothing, but were dyed with a fairly uncommon dye. Because of the chemical composition of the dye, I was able to trace the manufacturer. The products are made in China but sold to only one chain of stores."

"Which chain?"

"It's called 'Harpers'. They sell vegan clothing. These fibers come from their pants, jackets, or shoes." She paused, but then continued. "However, they don't have an stores in the DC area, Maryland, or Virginia."

Brennan glanced at Finn, who nodded, and then turned back to Gloria. "How were you able to determine this?"

"Chemical analysis of the fibers. Analysis of the dye. The dye contains no artificial elements, chemicals, or animal byproducts, which makes it vegan. The number of places that sell vegan products is pretty minimal, so it's pretty easy to determine where the fibers came from."

"So our killer is a vegan who at one point lived in outside the District of Columbia or the surround area, and has access to medieval weaponry."

"Ma'am, if you don't mind me sayin', I think you should revisit the fingerprints. If you and Ms. Montenegro can find a new suspect, we can use Ms. Gerard's information to narrow down the field."

"I seriously doubt veganism is something Angela can search in a fingerprint database, Mr. Abernathy. However, I will have her run the print again now that you've given me new information." Brennan turned to leave, but something else occurred to her. "And Miss Gerard? Please try to inform me when you're not going to be here."

* * *

"Sweetie, you realize that I've already run this print and it got us nowhere?" Angela asked, running a hand through her hair. "I can try again, but I doubt we're gonna get much more then we did last time." She typed in the search for a second time, and set images dancing across the screen of the Angelatron, querying every possible database for potential fingerprint matches.

"Can you run a background check for me?" Brennan asked abruptly while they were watching Angelatron look for fingerprints. She wasn't sure where those words had come from, but she knew that if anyone could help her feel better about her new intern, it was Angela. "Can you search for Gloria Ashley Gerard?"

"Your new intern? Is something wrong?"

"I don't know. I should be able to figure this out, but something about her is bothering me."

"Well, the Jeffersonian should have already done a background check, but I can see if I can unearth anything else."

Unlike with Ariella Cole, the Angelatron took a long period of time to find even one document related to Gloria Gerard. When it did, both Brennan and Angela raised their eyebrows.

"This isn't even remotely helpful." It was a death certificate from three years previous. Angela frowned.

"There's nothing else? Can you run facial recognition?"

"Sure."

It only took a second for a result to be found on Gloria Ashley Gerard's face, but once Angela had one result, about ten more showed up. Some were mug shots, others were security camera feeds, all with the same face, but different hair and clothes. Angela clicked on a file that went with a mugshot, one featuring a girl with longer, dirty blonde hair.

"Kristina Fischer. Arrested at age fourteen for indecent exposure. She ripped off her pants in a public shopping mall. Later, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but escaped from the institution she was forcibly committed to."

Angela clicked on another mugshot. "Maura McCarty. Arrested for shoplifting. Fled before her trial after being bailed. And this is Zoe Bartlett. Same charges, same situation. And this," Angela pulled up another photo, "This is Ashley Gerard, and her GED certificate she got at age 15. And this is Gloria Gerard, your intern, who graduated with honors from Syracuse University, and started on a Master's Degree at George Mason University this year." There was a pause while they both contemplated what this all meant, and then Angela spoke.

"Your intern is a identity thief."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Author's Note- Yeah, this is short. I'm sorry, guys. :(**_

_**I'm going out of the country for about a week and a half so I won't have computer access, but I will have my notebook so hopefully I'll be able to write the concluding few chapters on the plane or at least make more progress than I have lately.**_

_**And y'all should know the drill by now- I don't own anything you recognize. **_

"Bones, do we really have to do this now? We've got a killer on the loose. I don't need to be dealing with your squintern and her identity crisis." Booth looked exhausted, and Brennan didn't blame him. This was not what either of them wanted to be dealing with right now.

"Booth, I have a schizophrenic identity thief who thinks that it's acceptable to rip off her pants in a public place working in my lab. She's seen all the details of the case. I think we need to at the very least segregate her temporarily until we can deal with her appropriately."

"We can't just hold her forever. If we want to hold her, we have to charge her within forty-eight hours. Can you figure out a way to get her out of the lab without interrogating her?"

"And set her free with all the information about the case?"

Pausing for a moment, Booth thought. "We'll send her to Sweets for a psych eval." He held up his hands. "I know you don't like psychiatrists, but that's the best plan I have."

"Make sure he keeps her occupied until I tell him otherwise. I don't know if she's dangerous or not."

"Should he diagnose anything or just keep her busy?"

Brennan cocked her head, obviously thinking. "I suppose if he has relevant observations, it would be beneficial for him to share them."

"Is he supposed to confront her about being an identity thief? I don't think Sweets is…prepared for that kind of thing."

"I suppose he should just perform a standard evaluation. I can't imagine it would be beneficial to alert her that we're aware of her criminal activity."

"No, I don't think so."

"You do realize that you've just severely limited the time we have to solve this case, right?" Cam looked severely at Brennan after being filled in. "How long can you keep Gloria in a psych evaluation before she realizes you're on to her?"

Finn made a face. "I agree with Doctor Saroyan, ma'am. I understand that you need to prevent anyone from revealin' important details of the case, but I don't know if we're all gonna be able to find the killer in two to three hours."

"Then you should start working right immediately, Mr. Abernathy." She glanced over at the remains on the lab table.

"Is Angela still running the fingerprint?" Cam asked. "I can't imagine that's going to more productive the second time around."

Brennan was about to speak, but her phone rang before she could. "Doctor Brennan?"

"Put me on speaker." Angela sounded panicked.

"Is something wrong?"

"I need you to come down to my lab right now. Bring Cam and Finn. Do you know where Booth is?"

"Probably in his office. Why?"

"Just hurry. I'll explain when you're here. And call Booth."

Angela stood in front of the Angelatron, eyes wide. Booth, Cam, Brennan, and Finn were all in a semi-circle around her.

"While I was running the fingerprint, I decided to try and enhance the security camera image of the person who drove Lidewij Sneijer's car away in the security tape. It wasn't perfect, but I was able to get enough to run through a facial recognition program. This is what I got."

The picture on the screen made Cam gasp. "Kristina Fischer."

"If I'm not mistaken ma'am, is that…Gloria Gerard?" Finn asked.

"It is. That's her original name." Brennan nodded in agreement.

"Well, now we know who the murderer is." Booth pointed out. "This is good. Can you find a link between Lidewij Sneijer and Gloria Gerard?"

"This is _not_ good, Booth. We just left Sweets-"

"Alone with her," Booth finished Brennan's sentence. "Oh shit." He looked around quickly. "Angela, keep looking for connections between the victim and the crazy squintern, including all of her aliases. I'm gonna get a search warrant for Gloria's stuff, see if there's anything there."

"Should we call security?" Cam asked.

Booth and Brennan looked at one another. "I could call Sweets and tell him to come to my office," Booth suggested. "If she doesn't know anything, maybe she'll just think it's routine."

"Or if she becomes suspicious, she could become even more dangerous," Brennan pointed out. "If you're willing to take that chance, I would suggest that-"

"Agent Booth." Sweets stood in the door, staring at the Angelatron and the group assembled. "We have a problem."

"Join the club." It took a moment for Booth to realize who it was. "Sweets! You're alive. Where's the crazy squintern?"

"That's the problem. I don't know."

"You mean she ran away?"

"Well, she didn't show up in my office. Given that she's not in the lab or with you guys, I'm assuming yes, she ran away."

Sweets looked frustrated, but the rest of the group were wearing the same exact look, the find of look that said one thing. _We're fucked_


End file.
